OSAKA —
Kiyoshi Kato, a 24-year-old worker in the music business, was one of four men clad in shorts and ballet shoes toe-dancing along with female participants in a lesson held at a ballet dance studio in Tokyo’s Akihabara district.
With their foreheads beaded with sweat and faces looking serious, the four were exercising on tiptoe to the voice of a female instructor ordering them to straighten up their backs and legs at the Ballesonance Tokyo Ballet Studio.
Private lessons in ballet dancing for amateurs are not typically considered to be a man’s activity in Japan. But like Kato, an increasing number of men are taking ballet and other lessons typically geared toward women, apparently for self-realization and or just trying something new in a world relatively unknown to them.
Kato said his hobby of watching figure skating escalated into starting ballet dancing himself. ‘‘My job has to do with working with computers and hardly gives me chances to express myself,’’ he said. ‘‘When I’m ballet dancing, it’s fun to find myself different from what I usually am.’‘
The studio has been accepting men, even novices, for lessons since it opened in 2009. Currently, roughly half its around 70 enrollees are men who are on average 35 years old with most of them being office workers.
A female participant in one lesson said she likes the idea of having men practicing with them. ‘‘When men join, there’s a jovial touch to the atmosphere,’’ she said.
In Osaka City, at a studio filled with the sweet vanilla scent of the Tomato Cooking Club, Wataru Kagenishi, 31, was putting the final touches to his tube cake. ‘‘I’ve done it!’’ said Kagenishi in a spirited voice, drawing smiles from other participants who were mostly women.
An office worker, Kagenishi said he has been fond of cooking for a long time. ‘‘It’s really stimulating to come over here and meet people with different business backgrounds,’’ he said. ‘‘I can also feel a sense of achievement different from what I get while working.’‘
While taking after-work lessons is not so uncommon for men, many had been focused on learning English, bookkeeping or other subjects with practical values related to their jobs.
‘‘Since late last year, an increasing number of men are beginning to take part’’ in lessons previously dominated by women, said Nahoko Negishi, the editor in chief of the ‘‘Keiko to Manabu’’ periodical on various lessons offered by private and other institutions.
She said one factor behind such a trend may be ‘‘their desire to strike a mental balance by improving their skills in a world apart from their work when it’s difficult for them to further their professional careers in the economic downturn.’‘
Taking such lessons is not just limited to men in the workplace but also includes those in university. For one, Katsuki Kurita, 24, is a senior university student in Osaka and takes ikebana flower arrangement lessons at Aoki Hokyu Ohararyu Ikebana Kyoshitsu in the city.
‘‘I like looking at paintings and flowers,’’ said Kurita, who with hair dyed brown and a trendy look does not appear to be a typical ikebana enthusiast.
He does not seem to mind that people think the classes are intended for women. ‘‘I have male friends who go to cooking lessons and I’m not really concerned about what other people think about me.’‘
Tatsuo Inamasu, a social psychology professor at Hosei University in Tokyo, said of these men, ‘‘A sense of values has diversified and the conventional image of manliness is beginning to crumble.’‘
Inamasu, who studies consumer psychology, also said men are beginning to ‘‘accept tastes and merchandise for women more flexibly and enjoy them. Perhaps options for men are expanding.’’
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